I LOST ALL TO FIND ALL
(The Joe Winterman Story)

 

Hello, my name is Joe Winterman.  I would like to share with you a little bit about my life - where I've been and where I am now, which is only by the grace of God.  It is only by His grace that I am even alive to share this with you, and I pray that as you read, if there is anything that you can personally relate to for your own life, that you won't ignore it.  You owe it to yourself to find out what this is all about, this new life I will be sharing with you about.  I pray that you will do that and that you will find the answers to life that you may be searching for.  Please read on as I share...

I grew up in a small community in northwestern Ohio in the late sixties. I had a parental covering, but was pretty much left to my own leadings which got me into the drug and rock & roll culture at an early age. I was subject to chronic migraine headaches so I received medical advice to move to a different climate after I graduated from high school. I moved to Daytona Beach, FL and tried to start life over, but my drug dependency became stronger, and at eighteen years old, I felt like I was at the end of life.

A friend had led me to the Lord and I was baptized in the Holy Spirit shortly afterwards. During this time I was in a state vocational rehabilitation program for drug abuse, and they offered to send me to school. I tried going to several of the larger Bible schools in the country but they all declined my applications, so I went to an electronic school instead. With not being able to find strong solid Christian fellowship, it wasn't long before I was back into drugs and a rock & roll band found me.  I was ejected from school and the rehabilitation program and I was at the end of myself again, when I had an interruptive thought inside me that said I should go to Ft. Lauderdale and submit myself to the men of God there.

I stayed in Ft. Lauderdale and went through deliverance from evil spirits.  I was a member of that ministry for four years, free from drugs and the influences of them, and I was under strong Biblical authority.  This was what would come to be called the "discipleship movement" with international teachers such as Derek Prince, Bob Mumford, Ern Baxter, and Don Basham.  During this time I was hired into the computer division at American Express.  When the discipleship movement split up, I moved to Phoenix, where I continued to work for American Express in the computer operations division, but I also fell into bad company, and returned to "advanced drug usage" which was buying and selling cocaine and the use of methamphetamine’s; I was able to advance in my computer career.  I took special classes through IBM and I started to pursue a childhood dream which was to work for NASA in telecommunications, so I went to college while working full time to get a degree.

It was there I met a girl that I later married due to her getting pregnant, so I quit college. American Express had advanced me into a specialty IBM operating system called TPF.  There are very few of these systems in the world, and training was hard to come by.  They sent me to a special class, and the teacher was recruiting people to go to work on a three year open ended contract at AMADEUS GMBH in Erding, Germany.  I was strong in both TPF and international telecommunications, so he recruited me to a management position in Germany.  I knew I was not right with God, so alone in a computer room, I prayed for the first time in many years.  I spoke to the Lord Jesus and told Him that I was leaving America, and I needed Him to watch my back for me, and I needed someone who was right with Him to pray for me.